Male Cosmetics in China

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There is a lot of talk, debate and controversy in the west regarding what is dubbed “Woke Culture.”

In the US it has pretty much fragmented the country into 2 highly polarised and politicised camps. From Black Lives Matter, to Gay Pride and the LGBT Pride, to diversity and inclusiveness, breaking cultural and social barriers, stereotypes and norms is a current trend.

To some degree however, China might be ahead of the game in some aspects. Especially when it comes to gender stereotypes. As, was it Bob Dillon, wrote: “Oh the Times they are a changing.” Especially in China. However, today we will narrow our field to focus on male grooming and beauty products in China.

Regular readers and subscribers may recall we have touched on this before:

Pretty Chinese Men

Best of British

Putting Chinese in a Box

Now by sheer coincidence – truly, we mean it, those first 2 articles were published a year ago to the day -almost. (2nd and 3rd of September 2021)

Today, 6th September, 2022, we stumbled over an article from Alibaba dated June 15th this year which looks at the state of play as far as male cosmetics and their acceptance in China is concerned.

We should perhaps clarify, when we say acceptance, we are talking generally. Conversely, our quick, random poll of a few dozen Chinese women were less accepting.
#TheBic

OK, moving on. According to the authors of the Alibaba article: Elizabeth Utley , Alison Tudor Ackroyd, Chinese consumers are embracing male beauty and grooming brands as gender stereotypes crumble.

Randomly selecting a few other quotes:

The gross merchandise value of male grooming on Alibaba’s digital shopping platforms Taobao and Tmall surged 20-fold year-over-year between June 1 and June 3 in the runup to the 6.18 shopping bonanza.

London male grooming brand Hawkins & Brimble has three factories running at full tilt and had to airfreight products to China to keep pace with demand.

The beauty industry in China has grown by 4% from 2019 to 2021. Male consumers, particularly the younger generation, are becoming a major driver of that growth as they spend more on beauty products.

in 2020, the average Chinese man was using 2.3 different skin products, up from 1.7 in 2017,

A survey by market research group Ispos found that while 15% of heterosexual men aged 18–65 in the US currently use cosmetics, an additional 17% would consider using such products in the future, more than doubling the market.

We should also point out that the time frame mentioned, esp the last 6/18 shopping bonanza, coincided with a relaxation of Covid restrictions and many Chinese consumers took to E-com as a form of retail therapy.

Being blunt, fashion ad cosmetics are hot industries and China, and brutally competitive. For a brand looking to enter the emerging male market, whilst that boat might not have yet sailed, passages are booking up fast.

However, if you have the right product at the right time and are able to reach your audience in a way that resonates with them, then nothing is impossible. Dreams really can come true in China.

So there you have it. Well, no, not really. We have really only brushed the top of a rather well researched and well written article. We have focused solely on the stats provided. The article itself gives far more detail into just exactly who and what is driving this market.

As we have eluded to many time before, when marketing to Chinese, raw stats, figures are just a small % of total considerations. They really only present a very broad, overall view of a very broad country.

They need to be read in conjunction with the finer details of your consumer. Which of course is why we research and link you to such useful background articles as: